This book is difficult to review without giving everything away. It is not a typical book where I can start at the beginning and muddle through the middle but stop before giving away the ending: the title alone makes that impossible. A rising cult classic for sure, John Dies at the End by David Wong is a beast of its own class. David, both the protagonist and a pseudonym for Jason Pargin, senior editor at Cracked.com, invites us into a horror-comedy about two twenty-something fuck-ups who somehow stumble their way into being a sort of Ghostbuster/Clerks/Supernatural type of mash-up. A friend had suggested the book to me and made me watch the Coscarelli film (2011), which I thoroughly enjoyed, and since this friend doesn't read too much but raved about this particular volume, I decided to give it a shot. I'm not sure exactly what I expected going in, but it certainly wasn't that.
Needless to say, I heartily enjoyed it. The characters, while neither particularly heroic or even likable in the traditional sense of the word, are real, their thoughts raw and unpolished coming directly from David's internal POV. The storyline(s) are so far-fetched yet intriguing that we as readers desperately want to believe in them. The major thrust is that of a wrathful alien invasion of which most of the populace is unaware, but the book is broken up temporally by a frame story, one that involves Dave and a bumbling reporter meeting at a back-alley Chinese restaurant for Dave to convince said reporter of his story--and subsequently, his (relative) sanity. The reporter, Arnie Blondestone, acts on behalf of the reader, calling Dave on his inconsistencies and asking the very obvious questions, all the while sitting back in a state of half disbelief, half intrigue. Some reviewers have pointed to the books original status as web serials that might allow for the contradictions, and while I see that is a valid point, I also like to think that it's something Dave has woven in of his own accord. This is a book trying to show "actual, soul-sucking lunacy," as one reviewer said, and the mind of the lunatic we get is rife with the unimaginable; it is only logical that his brain might fail in the description of it.
That being said, some parts of the story are actually acknowledged as possibly ill-reported, mostly because they come secondhand from John, the other half of this monster-fighting duo. Though John claims the title and most of the spotlight, his story is still told through Dave's intimacy with the reader, his raw point of view. Dave sees himself as a sort of shadow of John, but in that humility lies an honesty that is both endearing and grounded, and while neither of the characters is particularly heroic or even likable in the traditional sense of the word, as David is quick to point out--but then, nothing about this book makes sense in the traditional sense of the word.
In any elaborate created world, there is always a "set piece," a sort of touchstone that defines the rules of the universe: the One Ring in Lord of the Rings, the TARDIS in Doctor Who, In this case, it is the Soy Sauce. It is almost sentient, and it seems to be an adequate metaphor for the story itself. Wong started publishing his story that would become John Dies serially online where it took on a cult force of its own and has eventually made it into the hands of horror-comedy filmmaker genius Dan Coscarelli, the mind responsible for works like Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)--you know, the one about Elvis in a senior home fighting demons. A certain brand of crazy has taken seed in this genre, a hyperabsurdity that breathes itself into every aspect of the story and makes it somehow more real, like Amy's phantom hand syndrome that can open the ghost door because neither of them is actually there.
The ghost door(s) is a good example of how John Dies fits under the umbrella of Urban Fantasy. Some parts of the internet define urban fantasy as "sub-genre of fantasy defined by its place...a prerequisite is it must take place in a city." The world of the boys' hometown, Undisclosed, is just enough like the reader's reality to make us comfortable, but with minor differences like the ghost doors and talking bratwursts. Also the fact that the differences are unseen by many--like typical fantasy--contributes more to the hyperabsurdity of the whole deal and the outsider's view of David's crumpling sanity. Because Dave keeps so much under his hat, changing things or only saying them in his head--like calling his hometown "Undisclosed" so much that it becomes a place in and of itself--he gives a power not only to his own world but to the world he is laying out for Arnie Blondestone. The "undisclosed" nature of Undisclosed. how it sort of circumvents the typical definition of "urban fantasy" by circumventing the typical definition of "city," and like many aspects of this book, therefore becomes more tantalizing.
I am severely looking forward to reading the sequel and keeping up with David Wong's future endeavors. The man is funny, and he makes me laugh in a way that I haven't experienced in a long time. Like this article on Cracked that includes not one, but two tongue-in-cheek, quasi-hysterical reviews of his very own book. But somehow, it doesn't make him seem like a huge tool.
some of my favorite (and more colorful) blurbs about John Dies At The End:
"John Dies at the End...[is] a case of the author trying to depict actual, soul-sucking lunacy, and succeeding with flying colors." --Fangoria
"Reads as if Bill Murray's world-weary Ghosbuster and sassy Buffy the Vampire Slayer spawned a slacker child--like Clerks with monsters. . . . Surprising, disturbing, and inventive." --Herald Sun (Australia)
other reviews I enjoyed:
"The Designer's Drugs" at Second Supper
I haven't heard of this but it sounds fun! Thanks for sharing your review
ReplyDeleteShelleyrae @ Book'd Out